We spent the weekend in the Other University town! After work on Friday Tim and I drove our hire van packed with bikes, laptops and several different types of shoes southwards. We arrived at Culham at the end of the day – just in time for a guided tour of the fusion research center. Then headed to Jon’s place for a bye bye summer BBQ in the garden and a tour of his house. As it was Friday we also found time to walk down to the river and grab a quick drink at a pub overlooking the silent black water and almost silent house boats working their way through the lock.

Saturday dawned bright and rainless and we cycled the few miles into Oxford to join the tourists. Oxford is choc full of museums and sadly I just didn’t have enough time to visit all of them. I spent a very pleasant day in the Ashmolean Museum and got to enjoy two of their free tours. You can go on a general tour of the museum at 11am and then a more in-depth look at one or two pieces at 2.15pm. They have an excellent dining room on the top floor of the museum where I stopped for a cup of tea. You don’t get much of a view but you do get a breath of fresh air! In between tours I popped into the Pitt Rivers museum to see the oddest collection of curiosities – from model houses to animal skeletons and gruesome shrunken heads.

Tim, Jon and I then wandered the streets of Oxford taking in the colleges, the Bodleian Library and the Radcliffe Camera, the Sheldonian Theatre, the rose garden outside the Botanical Gardens and the two great rivers that flow into the city – Cherwell and Thames – complete of course with rowers.

After nipping home for a quick supper and a catch up on the footie results for the boys – we cycled back into Oxford and went to the Eagle and Child. Famous as the place where the Inklings met it was full of people but we managed to get a table and three pints – after all it was Saturday night!